BISHOP MILNER.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—" An Irish Catholic" represents Bishop Milner as abso- lutely rejecting the Galilean doctrine "that the decisions of the Pope on points of faith are not infallible, unless they be attended with the consent of the Church." The following is an extract from Milner's "End of Controversy," Letter xii., "Objections Answered." He is referring to Bishop Porteus :—" Finally, his lordship, with other controversialists, objects against the infalli- bility of the Catholic Church, that its advocates are not agreed where to lodge this prerogative, some ascribing it to the Pope, others to a General Council, or to the Bishops dispersed through- out the Church. True, schoolmen discuss some such points, but let me ask his lordship whether he finds any Catholic who denies or doubts that a General Council, with the Pope at its head, or that the Pope himself, issuing a doctrinal decision which is received by the great body of Catholic Bishops, is secure from error? Most certainly not, and hence we may gather where all Catholics agree in lodging infallibility."
I may add, that throughout the book there is no assertion of the infallibility of the Pope per se. On the contrary, the infalli- bility is everywhere spoken of as attaching to "the Church," by which he seems to mean especially the Bishops. I could quote many passages in proof of this, but fear to encroach upon your space. Either, then, Bishop Milner did not regard the Pope as infallible per se, or else he practised that "mental reserve" which most Protestants find it so hard to understand or appreciate.—
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